What inspired you to become an author?
Reading stories inspired me to want to tell stories
myself. I write the stories I want to read. I became an author because at the
time, it seemed to be the logical thing to do. For some reason, no one knocked
on my door and asked if I had any ideas for stories or manuscripts in my drawer,
so it fell to me to publish the books if I wanted to share them.
Do you write in different genres?
I currently write paranormal romance and space opera
romance. I also write in series, because that’s how my muse thinks. Even if I
fondly imagine I’m writing a simple short story, my muse is busy in the background,
building the world and coming up with multi-book story arcs. With SHIFTER’S
STORM, I thought it was a standalone book in the Ice Age Shifters series, but
my muse informs me it’s a good place to start a new mini-arc that will take two
more books to finish.
If yes, which is your favorite genre to
write?
Paranormal romance and space opera romance — I can’t
choose between them. And if I someday write a romantic suspense series or a
steampunk series, those will become my favorites, too.
How did you come up with the title for
your latest book?
SHIFTER’S STORM starts with the aftermath of a storm.
The heroine, Chantal, happens to share her name with a hurricane that caused a
lot of damage right before the action begins. So naturally, she’s in for some
teasing when she’s on loan to a sheriff’s department that’s helping with damage
assessment. The mini-story arc for this book and the next two deals with storms
in various forms.
Do you title the book first or wait
until after it’s complete?
It depends on the story. Some came first and stayed
that way. Some came in the middle of the work in progress and changed several
times. One hid from me and my muse until the last possible minute and came from
a line in the story. SHIFTER’S STORM arrived in the middle of the outline
process for it and the next two books. They have titles, too, but they’re
secret.
Is the book, characters, or any scenes based
on a true-life experience, someone you know, or events in your own life?
The best thing about being a writer is that every
person you meet or experience you have, good or bad, can go into stories. All
my stories start with characters. I set them on a collision course with each
other, and get them into lots of trouble along the way. Authors are evil that
way. For example, in SHIFTER’S STORM, I know how it feels to have an irrational
fear of bees and wasps (long story), but I applied that to a character who’s
afraid of water. Then I give her a choice of jumping in the ocean or being
caught by hunters. Like I said, authors are evil. 😉
If you had to choose, which writer would
you consider a mentor?
I’m going to cheat and say that all my author
friends are my mentors, in one way or another. I’m a big believer in the collaboration
and alliance business models. Considering some voracious readers go through 7
or 8 books a week, no one author can keep that reader happy. But authors
working together can come close. If we help each other, support each other, and
appreciate each other, we all have a better chance of success.
What books are in
your to-read pile?
My TBR pile is larger than Mount Everest. Lindsay
Buroker has a whole new space opera series out that is impatiently waiting for
me to have time to binge-read them. My guilty pleasure in paranormal romance is
the various Zoe Chant paranormal romance series because the characters are
genuinely nice people who deserve to find each other and overcome obstacles to
being together. And I just stumbled across Koko Brown’s Something Witchy
This Way Comes, the start of what looks to be a hilarious paranormal
romance series.
Can you share a little of your current
work with us?
Gladly! In SHIFTER’S STORM, the hero is Dauro de
Mar, a prehistoric aquatic sloth shifter. He’s been held captive for a long
time in a fairy fantasyland called a demesne. Think of them as little pocket
universes where the rules are different from the real world. This short excerpt
introduces Dauro and his mini-world.
Dauro de
Mar lumbered up onto the bank of the impossible river and snorted forcefully to
open his nose and ear flaps. The pretend sun was more than halfway toward the
far horizon. He shook up and down to help his fur shed water.
The world
shook. Even the distant orchard trees to his left swayed.
What?
Dauro’s
giant aquatic sloth form was massive, but not that massive. Certainly not massive enough to shake an entire
magical fairy demesne.
The world
shook again, longer this time. Water sloshed onto the river’s banks, lapping at
his back paws.
When
Nessireth, the ancient fairy who created the private fantasyland to house the
collection of aquatic exotics she’d captured over the years, went on a rampage,
the wind blew heat and the central castle trembled. But she’d died and turned
to fairy dust two months ago.
A memory
surfaced of feeling something similar a couple of hundred years ago, soon after
Nessireth moved the demesne from the high, cold place to a warm island
location. The demesne’s anchor had been tugged by a violent real-world storm
she’d called a hurricane. After a second one a few years later, she’d used her
then-abundant magic to add more anchors. That cured it.
Dauro
also remembered a recent comment from Kelvin, the young pygmy hippopotamus
shifter who had been Nessireth’s final acquisition. Humans were now living everywhere, and they’d been burning forests
and fossils. According to Kelvin, scientists said it changed the climate, and they
predicted more hurricanes.
Dauro
believed it. Heat and magic were similar—increased energy in a stable spell
guaranteed unstable results.
More
shaking. The river water surged in a wave, wetting his front paws.
Fairy
demesne magic made the circular river flow constantly to provide habitat and
feeding grounds for him and the other aquatic shifters and creatures. It hadn’t
ever changed… until today.
Do you have to travel much to do
research for your books?
I wish! Sadly, the tourist-trap town in southern
Wyoming that is secretly a sanctuary to magical creatures of myth, legend, and
nightmare is a figment of my imagination. Similarly, all the destinations in my
space opera series won’t be built for another millennium.
If I was better organized, I’d set my paranormal
romance stories in fun exotic locales, then plan vacations around them so I could
write off the trip as a business expense.
Who designed the cover of your latest
book?
The very talented Amanda Kelsey of Razzle Dazzle
Design created the cover for SHIFTER’S STORM, as she did for the rest of the
series. I’m in awe of her talent. She’s extra patient with me because my characters
tend to be multicultural and funnily enough, there aren’t that many stock
photos of prehistoric animals to choose from.
Just
for fun
If you could have one paranormal
ability, what would it be?
Well, being a shifter, of course. ;-) I’d likely choose
to shift into a domestic cat so I could become as spoiled as ours are.
If you could
keep a mythical/ paranormal creature as a pet, what would you have?
I’d keep a cat who is also a familiar, to help me
work better magic. Of course, the cat would probably use its magic to work the
can opener and leave all the doors open, so maybe it would be safer to go with a
miniature dragon.
If you could spend a day with anyone
from history, dead or alive, who would it be, and what would you do? What would
you ask them?
This will sound really geeky, but I’d spend the day
with the remarkable Dr. Lise Meitner, a theoretical physicist who lived from
1878 to 1968. She was passed over for a Nobel prize for nuclear fission in the
favor of the man she worked with. She fled Nazi Germany and ended up in the
U.K. I’d ask her about her personal life, her work, and her experiences as a
brilliant woman in a man’s world.
Shifter’s Storm
Ice Age Shifters
Book 5
Carol Van Natta
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Ice Age Shifters
Book 5
Carol Van Natta
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Chavanch Press
Date of Publication: 12 December 2019
ISBN: 978-1946165176
ASIN: B081NPSFT9
Number of pages: 220
Word Count: 49,000
Cover Artist: Amanda Kelsey,
Razzle Dazzle Design
Tagline: In a dying fairy fantasy land, can two shifters tell if the magic between them is real?
Book Description:
In a dying fairy fantasyland, can two shifters tell if the magic between them is real?
While volunteering for hurricane cleanup, sheriff’s deputy and leopard shifter Chantal Hammond stumbles across two escapees from a fairy fantasyland. Unfortunately, when she tries to help, she ends up trapped. She quickly discovers she's lost in a mini-world of trouble, and more captives need rescuing.
Prehistoric sloth shifter Dauro de Mar and his friends have cruelly been imprisoned in their animal forms for years. His plan to lead the escape is mostly wishful thinking until an intoxicating and magical leopard shifter arrives still in her human form. She's their game changer.
It's going to take Chantal's and Dauro's combined skills, magic, and courage to evade evil hunters and greedy fairies, and get everyone out of this mess. Especially since the fairy fantasyland is disintegrating. Can they fight off danger—and their sizzling attraction—long enough to win their freedom? Or will they be destroyed by the mother of all storms when this magical land dies?
Find out today in Shifter's Storm, another sizzling hot Ice Age Shifters® paranormal romance from USA TODAY bestselling author Carol Van Natta.
Shifter's Storm is a complete story with a happily-ever-after and no cliffhanger, and can be enjoyed without having read the rest of the series.
Excerpt:
Dauro ya
Ketumino da’Nok de Mar lumbered up onto the bank of the impossible river and
snorted forcefully to open his nose and ear flaps. The pretend sun was more
than halfway toward the far horizon. He shook up and down to help his fur shed
water.
The world shook.
Even the distant orchard trees to his left swayed.
What?
Dauro’s giant
aquatic sloth form was massive, but not that massive. Certainly not massive
enough to shake an entire magical fairy demesne.
The world shook
again, longer this time. Water sloshed onto the river’s banks, lapping at his
back paws.
When Nessireth,
the ancient fairy who created the demesne to house her collection of aquatic
exotics like him, went on a rampage, the wind blew heat and the central castle
trembled. But she’d died and turned to fairy dust two months ago.
A memory
surfaced of feeling something similar a couple of hundred years ago, soon after
Nessireth moved the demesne from the high, cold place to a warm island
location. The demesne’s anchor had been tugged by a violent real-world storm
she’d called a hurricane. After a second one a few years later, she’d used her
then-abundant magic to add more anchors. That cured it.
Dauro also
remembered a recent comment from Kelvin, the young pygmy hippopotamus shifter
who had been Nessireth’s final acquisition. Humans were now living everywhere,
and they’d been burning forests and fossils. Scientists said it changed the
climate and predicted more hurricanes.
Dauro believed
it. Heat and magic were similar—increased energy in a stable spell guaranteed
unstable results.
More shaking.
The river water surged in a wave, wetting his front paws.
Fairy demesne
magic made the circular river constantly flowing to provide habitat and feeding
grounds for him and the other aquatic shifters and creatures. It hadn’t ever
changed… until today.
That brought
home to him that he and others needed to get serious about escaping. Nessireth
had bragged about spending millennia to construct her demesne, but it was
decaying daily without her active magic to maintain it. The false moon wasn’t
as round as it used to be, and had a noticeable pink tint. Just last week, the
constant breeze had taken to gusting chaotically.
None of the
captives knew what would happen if the demesne collapsed with them still
inside. Dauro was certain it wouldn’t be good.
His giant sloth
liked solitary peace and quiet, but his suppressed human side knew he needed to
check on the rest of his friends. Nessireth’s death had given him more freedom
than the others. And his limited telepathic skills as a sloth meant he had to
visit them himself. Nessireth had forced each of them to remain their animal
form, and the demesne would keep them that way forever… as long as the magic
held.
As the oldest of
Nessireth’s acquisitions, he’d become the sinchi, the temporary champion of the
collection. In his opinion, formidable size, war experience, and a talent for
magic while in animal form didn’t make him a leader, but he was the best they
had.
Before his
energy-saving sloth succumbed to the lure of a nap, he plunged back into the
water. Digging his strong, clawed toes into the silty bank, he let the water
flow over him for a minute while he thought. Downstream was the long way around
the river, but wouldn’t tire him out as fast. So far, the magical
protein-enriched sea grasses he depended on for food still grew overnight, but
for how long?
He shoved off
and let the current help him swim toward his friend Sunscar’s territory. The
closer he got, the more the magic in the water felt as agitated as the river
itself.
And no wonder,
because the lake’s wall was breached. Instead of an orderly river running next
to a placid pool, the whole area was now a flooded swamp. The demesne’s castle
was already repairing the wall, but the water had no natural way to drain back
into the lake.
Even worse, the
damage had activated the water-based defensive spells, which were fighting with
the castle’s defenses. Grab-weed tried to strangle the broken pieces of the
wall, as if they were attackers. Two of the animated castle statues tore at the
weeds so the wall could heal.
About the Author:
Carol Van Natta is a USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning science fiction and fantasy author. Series include the Central Galactic Concordance space opera series that starts with Overload Flux and Minder Rising, and the Ice Age Shifters paranormal romance series that starts with Shifter Mate Magic and Shift of Destiny. She shares her Fort Collins, CO home with a resident mad scientist and just the right number of equally mad cats.
Sign up for Carol Van Natta’s author newsletter: https://bit.ly/CVN--news
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carol.vannatta/
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